19. Wrestle Kingdom
19. Wrestle Kingdom
"Now, think about it with common sense. What is the origin of professional wrestling?"
"Well, isn't it wrestling?"
"NO, NO, NO. That's the general case. I'm talking about this world."
Nikolai, dragged into a separate room by my hand, was being made to understand the current situation by the great and terrible Big Bad Wolf.
If you ask why I only took Nikolai, it was because unlike the other two who quickly realized the truth, Nikolai denied reality to the bitter end.
- No way!! I can't believe that imposing, cool, terrifying Wolf was this kind of person!!!
That's why I brought Nikolai to the separate room.
Originally, this room was prepared to discipline delinquent juniors who were so hot-blooded they kept ruining scripts.
Back when I was active here, it was called the Room of Truth.
"I'll ask again. What is the origin of professional wrestling in this world?"
"Uh... that's..."
"Obviously, it's from inside the head of a reincarnator like me."
That's completely out of nowhere.
Skipping all the steps, suddenly popping out reincarnation-style professional wrestling, reincarnation-style voting, reincarnation-style scripts.
Wouldn't this be explanation enough?
"That doesn't make any sense! Boss, you even did John Armstrong!"
"That's a movie. You think I just filmed John for three years straight? I shoot intensely for a month, then usually work elsewhere."
"The prosthetic arm! What about the prosthetic arm? Boss, you originally had a prosthetic arm—"
Click.
I detached the prosthetic arm attached to my limb.
Then, my perfectly fine hand and leg were revealed underneath.
"Curious, isn't it? I secretly made it using research equipment from the Golden Magic Tower. It's an actual Ron gauntlet, but I distorted the air this way and that to make it look like a prosthetic arm."
For reference, I didn't make it myself; I received quite a lot of help from my mother.
As proof, the period when Big Bad Wolf started appearing with a prosthetic arm was after my parents found out I was active as John Armstrong.
"Please... don't destroy my world..."
"Be strong, boy. This is how people become adults."
"Gyaaah!!!"
That day, Nikolai's world collapsed.
*
After stuffing the now mentally-checked-out Nikolai into a corner, I returned to King's office.
"Let me introduce you. This is my uncle, Lionheart Price."
Since Lion King was also a luchador and his true face wasn't known to the public, I reintroduced him to them.
Hearing my introduction, Ailey voiced a question.
"Wait a moment, is he a family member of yours?"
"He is. Why else would I use the word uncle?"
"But Allen, you don't have animal ears..."
Her gaze went above my head.
But there was nothing there.
"Are you perhaps hiding them?"
"I don't have animal ears."
"Then this person..."
This time, her gaze went above my uncle's head before she quickly turned her head away.
She probably thought it was rude.
There's no need to worry about that, though.
He had never cared about etiquette, so unless she resorted to physical violence, he would not even notice most forms of rudeness.
"He's my father's half-brother. My grandmothers number three."
Wow, three grandmothers, you must be so happy.
Suddenly, I became a grandma-chosen, and my uncle a da—chosen, but it's the truth, so nothing can be done.
I had trouble adapting at first too, but it was considered common sense in an empire where polygamy was ordinary.
Though that only applies to the Empire; her home kingdom, if my memory serves, practices monogamy, so it seemed hard for her to accept.
In contrast, the elf immediately understood.
Elves lived so long that divorce—or bereavement—and remarriage were common.
Still, Ailey was, at least for now, a rational magic tower wizard, so she managed to accept it somehow.
"As expected of Ailey. So smart."
"It's Ailey, Allen."
"Ah."
I'll correct that.
Ailey was also, at least for now, rational...
In any case, Uncle Lionheart was the business partner with whom I had built Wrestle Kingdom from the ground up.
I had proposed the professional-wrestling business partly because he practiced Glory of the Beastfolk, a school similar to wrestling, and partly because he was as prone as I was to acting first and dealing with the consequences later.
My uncle, who started a business with his nephew in secret from his older brother and sister-in-law (my parents), got scolded by my parents and grandparents later, but the business succeeded anyway.
My uncle became the owner of a massive entertainment business averaging five million viewers, while I continued receiving a share as co-owner.
"Hold on. Then Allen's assets are..."
I shrugged.
It was hardly a boast, but I controlled enough assets to operate a film business.
It's not that I'm particularly greedy for money, but films require quite a lot of money.
That money often became a major factor in determining a film's direction.
I hated that.
I had no intention of allowing anyone to put their dirty feet into my films.
So, this was the business I started when I was filming John Armstrong.
"Anyway!"
That wasn't the important bit.
I tapped the rebooting Nikolai and told them about the future plans.
"From now on, Wrestle Kingdom's professional wrestlers will appear as the monsters in our magical-girl show."
Professional wrestlers had diverse gimmicks, just like the monsters in a magical-girl show. That made them ideal for roles that needed a new pattern every episode.
Many professional wrestlers were also burly men, solving the physique problem.
"But what about the money? We're just students; can we afford the costs? No, before that, do those barbarians even match the level of the magical girl show?"
Damn pointy-ears.
They discriminate as naturally as breathing.
I, Allen Price.
From my past life to this one, I've never let racial discrimination slide.
"Ceres, you must know nothing of the world since you're a country bumpkin who crawled out of the forest. I'll only tell you once, so listen carefully.
"First, Hetairo Academy doesn't mean we're 'just students.'
"Second, wrestlers aren't barbarians; they're Heroes officially recognized to operate in the Sanctuary.
"Third, the value that can be put on the table isn't all about money."
My uncle also nodded from beside me.
Her face twisted, probably never expecting to hear that she didn't know the ways of the world at age eighty-nine.
Well, I said it to piss her off, so I didn't care.
"As you just saw, wrestlers live and die by popularity. The problem is that popularity resembles money: the famous few monopolize most of it."
"Besides today's main event, Wrestle Kingdom often holds tournaments restricted to newcomers. But as Allen said, audiences show little interest in rookies, so those events accomplish very little."
"Stagnant water rots. The veterans may be popular now, but if they keep monopolizing attention, Wrestle Kingdom will collapse the moment they retire. We desperately needed a way to advertise the newcomers, and now we have the perfect promotional vehicle: a magical-girl show."
"The newcomers get to make a name for themselves as monsters, we can use it to push the newcomers, and you ladies can greatly reduce your costs. It's a win-win for everyone, so there's no reason to refuse, is there?"
She accepted the explanation and shut her mouth.
Though her lips were crooked, as if she were still sulking.
Well, it was none of my business, and all that remained was signing the contract with my uncle.
"Ailey. Could we bring the Golden Magic Tower in as an intermediary?"
"Yes, of course. The Tower Master will approve. For now, I'll pass it under my name on-site, and we'll formalize the tower's participation later."
"Thanks."
The Golden Magic Tower was a tower that sold coin-minting technology to various countries or handled it through outsourcing.
Because of that, it was the wealthiest of all the magic towers, but that wasn't the important part—the Golden Magic Tower also functioned as an international bank.
Once this filming started, wrestlers from all sorts of countries would gather, and wouldn't the transactions be much smoother if the Golden Magic Tower was in the middle for the contracts?
Conveniently, Ailey was an elder, so we didn't even need to go to the tower and could pass it on the spot.
And so, the three people's signatures and seals were engraved on the contract.
"Uncle, I look forward to working with you."
"Likewise, I look forward to it."
"Allen, when do you think Nikolai will regain consciousness?"
"Is he still in denial?"
"Yes."
"Conveniently, there's a place here that can make him acutely aware of reality. Uncle, you haven't moved the training center, right?"
"It's still right next to the stadium. In fact, a new gravity load device just arrived from a partnership with the magic tower recently."
"Oh. Nice. Then let's go right away."
*
Filming proceeded smoothly.
Although early on, there was the problem of the screenwriter and director having to use a wheelchair after visiting the training center, it didn't matter since he wasn't acting, so filming continued as planned.
There were a few hiccups during filming, but since that was none of my business, the shoot proceeded.
And one thing changed during production: this time we contracted with the Body-Strengthening Magic Tower, scheduling the broadcast every Saturday in the slot right before Wrestle Kingdom.
From the start, the program keeping the Body-Strengthening School afloat was Wrestle Kingdom, so we had no choice but to meet their demands.
"Boss. But can we really call this a movie?"
"What does it matter? You said in your era the line between movies and dramas got blurry. Let's just treat it that way."
From what I'd heard, his world reached a point where people watched dramas the same way they watched movies.
Sadly, in our world, the war broke out before any companies like that appeared, so I don't know much about it.
Besides, strictly speaking, even in my previous life, early dramas weren't that different from movies—there was nothing more pointless than trying to distinguish between the two.
In any case, after countless hardships and trials, the serialized show <Magical Girl Magical Mari>—which became something between a movie and a drama—finally revealed itself to the world.
=====================================
Our studio crew sprawled across the club room sofas and waited for the premiere on the big screen.
By flipping through the channels the magic towers provided, we found the Body-Strengthening School's entertainment channel in no time.
Fifteen minutes to premiere.
Everyone waited with bated breath, and right on the hour it finally began.
As the film started, an opening theme familiar to Nikolai and me began to play.
In contrast, the medieval natives, who had no concept of an opening song playing before the actual film began, were baffled.
"What is this?"
"Allen, did you have us film those short clips back then for something like this?"
"Human. What is this? Isn't this a film?"
Ah, this was what they called an opening sequence. Poor, uncivilized medieval people.
But that was as far as my idle mockery went.
Nikolai and I, as we'd planned, quickly preached the importance of the opening before it ended.
Though the gist of that preaching boiled down to: if you nail the opening, you're already halfway there.
After a brief commotion, the drama started in earnest.
Episode 1 of a magical girl show doesn't stray far from daily-life fare.
The main plot was: the protagonist forms a contract with a mascot to defeat a monster that appears midway through the episode, then struggles a bit before taking the monster down.
As a side note, Nikolai said that in his world they made a lot of attempts to break away from clichés, and just hearing about it piqued my interest.
Either way, our work followed a similar vein.
On screen, 'Celestia Claudius' was dashing to the academy with a piece of toast in her mouth.
"I know it's late to ask this, but why the toast? She could just wake up earlier and eat."
"Because she's a high school girl."
"And because it's the school commute."
Nod, nod.
"?"
Ceres watched Nikolai and me explain, then nodded with a vaguely unsatisfied look.
Celestia was an honors student at Hetairo Academy.
Grades, athletics, friendships—everything.
She was perfect in every way.
But even she had one secret she could never tell.
"Lirpin. I'm bored."
"Guardian, saying that won't make anything I can do for you appear, meow."
The secret was that she had a spirit friend.
Spirits were normally rooted in nature.
But her friend was an irregular born from a gemstone, so she'd kept it hidden from everyone.
Lirpin was a spirit that looked like an SD cat.
She'd met Lirpin one day as she was walking home from school—it had just dropped out of the sky in front of her.
She and Lirpin became fast friends, and she'd frequently confide her honors-student worries to Lirpin.
So far, it looked like a slightly peculiar but overall ordinary college-girl life.
But her daily life was shattered without warning.
Just as everyone was heading home, a gorilla monster plummeted from the sky and attacked the academy.
However, unlike my previous world, the citizens of this one weren't helpless humans paralyzed by panic the moment a monster appeared.
On top of that, this was an academy.
Any half-assed villain who showed up here could get their spine folded in half.
Which meant we needed to give this a bit of justification.
[Bwahaha! Do you really think such feeble magic can stop me?!]
The extras launched a counterattack at the sudden monster.
But their magic couldn't even scratch the monster.
Just as people began to sense something was off, the monster helpfully explained what no one had asked.
The monster declared it wielded power from another world and could not be vanquished by ordinary magic.
In reality, it just endured everything with a pro wrestler's raw durability, but on screen it certainly looked convincing.
The professors managed to land a few minor wounds on the monster, but that was the extent of it.
It seemed the school was about to be overrun by a single monster—and then, in that moment.
The screen shifted to Ceres.
Suddenly, Lirpin proposed a contract in the chaos.
[Contract with me, meow!]
Ceres accepted without hesitation.
Contract fraud?
A magical-girl show was the last place to look for that kind of logic.
A mascot running a contract scam as a genre deconstruction was, at the very least, far too early for this world.
Besides, the real Ceres had already shouldered the contract's price many times over.
In any case, the moment she sealed a dream-and-hope-filled contract packed with clauses exclusively in her favor, a staff studded with a heart-shaped gem materialized in her hand.
"..."
As that scene appeared, Ceres's lips pressed together.
She couldn't help it.
The scene coming up next was the one that racked up hundreds of NGs.
[Trans-form!]
Ceres shouted her transformation with bravado.
But her staff didn't react in the slightest.
[Nothing's happening.]
[You got the incantation wrong, meow. You have to speak the magic words to transform, meow!]
[Which ones?]
['Shine, my will! Shining Willingness!' That's it, meow! Just don't add the 'meow' at the end, meow!]
At a glance, you wouldn't know, but the people who'd participated in the shoot could tell.
The truth was that Ceres's mascot on screen—in reality the spirit she'd summoned—was struggling not to die of laughter.
I still vividly recalled the summoned spirit bursting into hysterics mid-scene and racking up around thirty NGs by itself.
Soon, the scene that produced the most NGs throughout the entire episode appeared.
[Shine, my will! Shining Willingness!]
A brilliant light wrapped around her body.
Once the light faded, her ordinary academy uniform had become a frill-adorned dress, and her toy-like staff had turned into a gauntlet.
No matter who looked, it wasn't an outfit suited for combat—but overcoming that contradiction was the very essence of a magical girl.
At last, the transformation ended, and 'Magical Mari' shouted.
[Magical Mari! Sowing hope like a shooting star—arriving right here!]
The transformation incantation and the entrance line had to be shouted, no matter what.
This was a serious matter.
The moment she appeared, the reaction in the club room was dramatic.
"..."
"Pfft—!"
"Eueheheheheheh."
Everyone in the room except for one single person burst into laughter.
She truly was a magical girl who sowed dreams and hope.
How else would every last person in this room be wearing a broad grin?
"Ahahahahah!!! I really made the right call contracting with you, Contractor!!!"
Even the summoned spirit floating beside Ceres was clutching its belly and rolling through the air.
Glare.
She narrowed her eyes and banished the spirit back to the spirit realm.
But I wasn't about to let that slide.
Sure, it was her spirit, but wasn't that spirit fella (lass?) part of our filming crew too?
That creature had the right to watch this movie to the end.
When I gave the signal, Carlos summoned the spirit back here for me.
"Hey!"
"Euehehehehe."
Ceres buried her face against her knees in mortification and murmured quietly.
"How many episodes of this are scheduled?"
"No idea. Nicol, how far does the script go?"
"For now, with the wrestlers you contracted, Boss, each appearing four or five times, it's already mapped out to around Episode 100. If the response is good, not just new wrestlers but also pro veterans and other heroes—ones whose promotion relies heavily on Magical Mari—will join in, so tentatively we could go up to Episode 300."
I did the math.
One episode per week. And forty-eight weeks in a year.
"Heh. Congratulations. Looks like you won't have to worry about acting roles until you graduate from the academy."
"Aaaaauuugh!!!"
A single pathetic scream echoed through the room.